A notorious far-right blogger may have provoked WikiLeaks' outreach to Donald Trump Jr.

The far-right blogger Charles Johnson may have played a
role in WikiLeaks' outreach to Donald Trump Jr.

Trump Jr.'s exchanges with WikiLeaks in private Twitter
messages over 10 months have come under scrutiny this week
after an explosive report by The Atlantic.

Johnson published a story in September 2016 about an
anti-Trump website that WikiLeaks then sent to Trump
Jr.

A far-right blogger may have tipped the WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange off to an anti-Trump website that WikiLeaks then sent to
Donald Trump Jr. in a private Twitter message in September 2016.

Charles Johnson, who calls himself an independent journalist and
runs a site called GotNews, published an
article at about 9:30 p.m. ET on September 20, 2016, claiming
he had "obtained a memo from a George Soros-tied PR firm that is
launching a website to spread conspiracy theories about Donald
Trump's connections to Russia." Soros is the investor and
business magnate who has become a favorite
bogeyman of the far right.

"The site, PutinTrump.org,
is set to be launched tomorrow morning on Wednesday, September
21, by public relations firm Ripple Strategies," Johnson wrote.

Johnson updated his article again to include the password for
PutinTrump.org, which was still locked. He said he had obtained
it from "GotNews researchers."

"About 2 hours after our original article, Julian Assange's
WikiLeaks repeated our discoveries," he wrote. "Guess which big
leaks organization reads GotNews & WeSearchr on the downlow!
Come on Julian, let's work together. WikiLeaks & WeSearchr is
a match made in heaven. We can take down Hillary together."

Perhaps unbeknownst to Johnson at the time, WikiLeaks had also
"repeated" his "discoveries" in a private message to Trump Jr. —
about 10 minutes before tweeting it publicly.

"A PAC run anti-Trump site 'putintrump.org' is about to launch,"
WikiLeaks wrote in a message to Trump Jr. just before midnight on
September 20. "The PAC is a recycled pro-Iraq war PAC. We have
guessed the password. It is 'putintrump.' See 'About' for who is
behind it. Any comments?"

Trump Jr. replied, "Off the record I don't know who that is but
I'll ask around."

It is unclear whether Johnson's story in September marked the
beginning of his contact with Assange, who has been living in
asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012.

"I don't discuss who I communicate with," Johnson told Business
Insider in an email.

'They're going to have to subpoena me, and then they'll be sorely
disappointed'

The timing of Johnson's article and WikiLeaks' outreach to Trump
Jr. is significant because of some later tweets by Roger Stone, a
longtime adviser to Trump, and subsequent revelations about
Johnson's role in arranging a meeting between Assange and US Rep.
Dana Rohrabacher in August of this year.

On October 2, 2016, five days before WikiLeaks published the
first set of emails stolen from the inbox of John Podesta, the
chairman of Democrat Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, Stone
tweeted: "Wednesday @HillaryClinton is done. #WikiLeaks."

Two days later, he tweeted: "I have total confidence that
@wikileaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American
people soon #LockHerUp."

Stone told the House Intelligence Committee in September that he
knew of Assange's plans via a "journalist" who was in touch with
Assange. Stone, however, would not reveal the journalist's
identity.

"I have referred publicly to this journalist as an
'intermediary,' 'go-between,' and 'mutual friend,'" Stone
testified. "All of these monikers are equally true."

Stone denied that the journalist in question was Johnson.

Roger Stone, a longtime
adviser to President Donald Trump.Hollis Johnson

"The journalist who confirmed Julian Assange's public comments of
July 21 that he had and would publish Hillary's emails is
definitely, positively NOT Chuck Johnson, who is both a
psychopath and a bulls--- artist," Stone said on Wednesday night.

About a month before Stone's House testimony, Johnson met with
Assange and Rohrabacher in London. The meeting, Johnson told
reporters at the time, stemmed from a "desire for ongoing
communications" between the congressman and the WikiLeaks
founder.

Assange reiterated during the meeting that Russia did not give
WikiLeaks the emails stolen from the Democratic National
Committee that it dumped in July 2016, Johnson said.

Rohrabacher says he has been trying to meet privately with Trump
to relay Assange's message. He told Business
Insider last month that the White House chief of staff, John
Kelly, was blocking him from meeting with Trump.

The Senate Intelligence Committee sent Johnson a letter on July
27 asking him to turn over documents containing
"any communications with Russian persons, or representatives of
Russian government, business, or media interests" that related to
Russia's election meddling and the 2016 US presidential campaign
more broadly.